Biden Announces Parole Program for Immigrant Spouses of U.S. Citizens

On June 18, President Joe Biden unveiled a new program aimed at providing relief to certain spouses of United States citizens through a parole-in-place initiative from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This initiative, set to roll out in the coming months, holds the potential to grant temporary protections and work permits to an estimated 550,000 individuals, allowing them a pathway towards lawful permanent resident (LPR) status in the country.

The existing U.S. immigration laws enable citizens to sponsor their non-citizen spouses for permanent residency. However, for undocumented immigrants, particularly those who entered the U.S. without authorization, this path has been beset with obstacles that make obtaining legal status exceedingly challenging and risky. The Biden administration’s novel parole program addresses the chief impediments faced by many unauthorized immigrants, offering them a more accessible route to secure permanent residency.

Spouses of U.S. citizens typically qualify as immediate relatives for an immigrant visa, paving the way for them to become legal residents and eventually apply for U.S. citizenship after a stipulated period. Nonetheless, individuals who entered the U.S. without inspection, such as crossing the U.S./Mexico border unlawfully, encounter significant hurdles in attaining permanent residency through their spouses. The only recourse for them has traditionally been a convoluted bureaucratic process fraught with uncertainties, leaving a sizable fraction of an estimated 1.2 million individuals married to U.S. citizens in a state of legal limbo.

Under the legal framework, immigrants who have been “inspected and paroled” into the U.S. or entered through official ports of entry can pursue adjustment of their status to permanent residency without exiting the country for an immigrant visa interview at a U.S. embassy or consulate abroad. Conversely, immigrants who entered without inspection lack this option, necessitating them to depart the U.S., visit a consulate abroad, and secure a new immigrant visa for reentry.

Once outside the U.S. for consulate visits, these immigrants often trigger extended bars on legal reentry to reunite with their families due to a 1996 law imposing up to ten-year bans on individuals deemed “unlawfully present” in the country beyond a year, rendering them ineligible for visas they are otherwise qualified for. To mitigate this, immigrants wedded to U.S. citizens can seek a waiver of the bar by demonstrating “extreme hardship” their spouses would endure from prolonged separation.

The long-drawn process of adjudicating these waivers, which as of April 2024 exceeded 41 months, compounded with the underlying immigrant visa application assessment, and consulate journey arrangements, accentuates the challenges faced by these immigrants. However, the Biden administration’s move to grant “parole-in-place” under the new program offers a glimmer of hope, streamlining the pathway for eligible applicants to apply for green cards while remaining in the U.S. sans the risk of enduring separation.

The parole program, buoyed by the concept of humanitarian parole, empowers the executive branch to provide temporary entry or stay rights to those lacking a lawful basis, grounded on urgent humanitarian reasons or noteworthy public benefits. Noteworthy, individuals granted parole, including parole-in-place, are deemed to have been “inspected and paroled” into the U.S., thus enabling them to pursue green cards through their spouses by applying for status adjustment within the country, obviating the reentry impediments.

Moreover, even if an individual’s provisional grant of parole expires or is rescinded in the future, they retain the parolee status under immigration law. This signifies that individuals accorded parole-in-place through the program will remain eligible for green card applications without compelling departures and unwarranted family separations.

To partake in the forthcoming parole-in-place scheme, families are expected to lodge new applications through an awaited form release, in tandem with the requisite documentation substantiating their eligibility criteria and a prescribed fee. The eligibility criteria, stipulated by DHS but pending detailed disclosure, denote that eligible individuals must be spouses of U.S. citizens, arrived in the U.S. before January 1, 2010, and have a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident child or parent.

It is pivotal to note that while the parole program predicates eligibility on individuals being qualified for permanent residency, the listing of criteria by DHS doesn’t categorically mandate this condition. Hence, there might ensue instances where individuals secure parole protections and work permits without meeting the permanent residency conversion benchmarks, such as those previously deported and reentered sans inspection.

The White House estimates a potential beneficiary pool of about 500,000 spouses of U.S. citizens for the new parole program, further extending eligibility to an additional 50,000 stepchildren of U.S. citizens among applicant households. These parole opportunities present an unprecedented avenue for eligible individuals to actualize the permanent residency prospect, fostering familial unity and enabling legal employment opportunities while their immigrant visa applications progress. The move not only allays the enduring uncertainties for the individuals involved but also bestows a sense of assurance and permanence for their U.S. citizen spouses and oftentimes, their U.S.-born offspring.